The Boulton Blog: Because of Thy Great Bounty Lord, Each Day I Live.

Finally! A post for this past week. :)

David: What to say about my little love? He's growing, and smiling, and sweet as can be. He's almost sleeping through the night, only waking once between 7 pm and 6 am to eat. He's grown into his 6-9 month clothes, but thankfully still fits in the sleepers his Grandma Boulton just got him since they have more tummy room than normal baby outfits, and boy is that tummy growing. haha. I love how soft and cuddly he is when he's in them. :)

Caleb: At the beginning of this week I'm pretty sure that running after this kid I burned off at least enough to not feel at all guilty for Thanksgiving. Monday morning he managed to climb into the sink in my bathroom while I was nursing David and run enough water to soak his clothes, fill the sink, and the glass of water he was trying to fill so he could get a drink. Thank goodness I came in before it all started hitting the floor.

Tuesday I was nursing David and thought Caleb had fallen asleep on the couch where he had been laying down watching Cars since it was so quiet. After about 15 minutes I heard the sound of plastic hitting my kitchen floor and realized Caleb was not asleep. When David was done eating, I went down to the kitchen to find that someone had forgotten to lock the water dispenser in the freezer door and Caleb had tried to get himself a drink of water. Once again he had soaked himself - and half of my kitchen floor, and had tried cleaning it up with a broom. When he realized he was just spreading water around, he decided to try to splash the water with the broom handle instead.

Wednesday morning after coming home from the YMCA he got into the pomegranate seeds that had been taken out of the fridge to make room for the turkey and scattered them all over a 2 foot circumference around himself on my freshly cleaned carpets. I couldn't get to him without stepping on them, so I was trying to clean them up as fast as I could while praying Caleb would just keep trying to eat them instead of getting up and trying to help. We managed to get them all picked up with only 2 bursting on the floor, and the newly purchased Bissel Stomp'n'go pads saved the day. :)

Oh the adventures of toddler-hood. hahahaha

Byron: He worked hard the first half of this week in order to enjoy spending the last 2 and a half days at home with us. He was even kind enough to take the car Monday so I wouldn't be able to run away from all of the things I wanted to get done and he could get home faster at the end of the day. Oh how I love him.

Arielle: My big news this week is that I cooked a turkey!!! It was moist and delicious and I'm ssoooo proud of myself! bwahahahahahaha

In General: Byron came home from work at lunchtime and spent the rest of the day helping me get things cleaned up. Melissa got here shortly after 5 pm and once we got Zen settled (her greyhound) we headed to Vandalia to meet a dog my Mommy found on craigslist for me. I had been checking the pet listings regularly, but it had gotten posted in the "for sale or wanted" ads and I missed it. I'm so glad she saw it. Melissa helped me think of good questions to ask on the way there and pointed out great things when we got there. I was glad she came. :) The dog was a coon hound border collie mix and was so sweet and gentle. She was really scared of us at first, but she warmed up quickly and came home with us that night! She didn't like Zen anywhere near her while she was even thinking about eating, and she's had a couple accidents while adjusting to a new house, family, and schedule, but other than that she's been absolutely fantastic and just what we were looking for in temperament, size, and she barely sheds. Yea!!! Her previous owner was also kind enough to give us her food bowls, leash, collar, her dog bed (which she doesn't use), her vet paperwork, the paperwork we need in order to register her microchip under our names, and a $25 gift card to petsmart that someone had given him and he hadn't used yet. It was kind of an awesome deal. hahaha
Thursday was Thanksgiving. We had the opportunity to host this year for my family and Wilson Grandparents and I was so excited! Byron sister in law was able to make it up from Paducah Kentucky, and we had our sister missionaries as well and I loved being surrounded by so many wonderful people. I thoroughly enjoyed having everyone here and Caleb and Melissa indulged all my craziness in decorating. A dear friend of mine let me borrow some of her china so I would have enough place settings for everyone and I found some beautiful table linens at Meijer that I was so excited to use. It was beautiful, there was tons of food, and lots of people to help me eat it and to take home leftovers. I think I'm just as in love with Thanksgiving as I am with Christmas. haha :)
Friday was, of course, black Friday. Melissa and I ran out so I could use some bath and body works coupons, and to Meijer so I could get the Christmas present we had picked for my parents at an awesome price. Woo hoo! I was so glad it was still in stock since it was part of the weekly ad and such an awesome deal, but they had been out just 2 days before at both of the Meijers near my house. That night we all went out to Chipotle for dinner and came home to put Caleb down to bed so we could roast marshmallows in the fireplace for s'mores. We still had some starburst candy from a really great sale at Walgreens over the summer, so we roasted a few of those too, and watched Tangled. It was a nice relaxing evening and I really enjoyed it.
Today was a pretty lazy day. Melissa headed back to Paducah after breakfast, and we lazed around the house until late afternoon when we decided to go to the YMCA. We had a good time playing in the pool for about an hour before coming back home, and are just getting ready to wind down and start Caleb's bedtime routine.

Thanks for staying up to date with the going ons of our family. We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and I'm looking forward to reading each of your emails this weekend. We love you all!

Our new dog Bella!

A place setting from one of the thanksgiving tables

So maybe I'm a little over excited about my tables, but aren't they pretty?!

A place setting at the other table.

The beautiful tablescape. I love my table cloth

The kids table

Me with my first turkey!
It weighed about 23 lbs and I was really nervous when it didn't thaw out in my fridge after being in there almost 3 whole days, but it thawed in the sink just fine and cooked up really yummy!